Press Statements

Demand to present Advocate Ravichander Report, Government of Telangana must act now!

The Milli Gazette

Published Online: May 17, 2014

Hyderabad (17 May 2014): On the occasion of completion of Seven years of Makkah Masjid bomb blast and subsequent police firing, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee pays homage to the Martyrs and expresses its solidarity with the families of victims of bomb terror, police terror and media terror. This committee expresses its grief and sorrow on the conditions of victims and their families and also expresses its anguish and concern over the negligence of government towards the serious issues and inaction by the Indian investigating agencies even after knowing who the real terrorists are! It seems that the government of India and investigating agencies are not serious to investigate this case instead they are behaving in biased manner because the victims are Muslims and the criminals are Hindutva terrorists. It has been clearly proved that all the bomb blasts in the country including the Makkah Masjid bomb blast have been perpetrated and executed by the Hindutva terrorists and this is the reason that they are being shielded and protected. Not only this, the few Hindutva terrorists who were arrested has been released on bail. Whereas, the innocent Muslim youth who were arrested were first put under illegal detention, tortured and put behind bars for months together without trial. By this the fact comes out that the state and the investigating agencies are not serious and also the judiciary is playing biased role towards Muslims.

We strongly feel that there was definite nexus between the police personnel who have Hindutva mentality and the Hindutva organizations during the period of blasts in the country. The reason behind this belief is that soon after the Makkah Masjid bomb blast, when the people were helping the blast victims in shifting them to hospitals, police opened fire on those people, even few media personnel are the witness to this, but are silent. It is common reaction of the people that whenever any untoward incident happen, people panic, run helter skelter and few immediately take measures to help the victims. This happened after the Makkah Masjid blast also, but police officers took advantage of it and gave the reason for firing that the Muslims who were present were trying to destroy the public property because of which they had to open fire. The secret report of police reveals many blunders. After that on the name of investigation of bomb blast, police started picking up hundreds and hundreds of Muslim youth, then illegally detained and tortured them mercilessly.

Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee in the year 2007, filed a petition in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh challenging the police firing on innocent Muslims after the Makkah Masjid bomb blast, requesting them to register the murder case on such police personnel who ordered and opened the fire. A.P. High Court admitted the petition and issued notices to the state and police officials as to why a case should not be registered under the section 302. Andhra Pradesh government appointed senior lawyers to defend its police officers. After a number of hearings the A.P. High Court directed the petitioners to approach the Supreme Court saying, “The issue involved in this matter has already been adjudicated and decided by a Larger Bench of this Court. However, against the said decision the State Government has approached the Hon’ble Supreme Court. Learned counsel for the State informs that the said matter is still pending before the Apex Court. In the circumstances, we close the writ petition permitting the petitioner to approach the Hon’ble Supreme Court, if so advised in accordance with law, as the matter is sub judice before the Apex Court”. As per the directions of the High Court, CLMC is proceeding to approach Apex Court.

Though CLMC will proceed and approach the Apex Court as per the directions of A.P. High Court, but also states that when the matter was in the A.P. High Court, the A.P. government not only defended the tainted police personnel by appointing top most lawyers, and also delayed the process from 2007 to 2014 and in this period of time the tainted policemen were awarded and rewarded with promotions of higher posts. For example Rajiv Trivedi, Harish Kumar Gupta and Ramchandran who are actually responsible for the firing and torture of Muslim youths. The state government has not even presented the torture report by Advocate Ravichander who was appointed by the A.P. State Minority Commission, in which it is clearly mentioned that police brutally tortured the Muslim youth and also gave recommendations for their counseling and rehabilitation.

Here CLMC wants to remind that by giving meager amount of money on the name of compensation is not justice. Justice should be based on equity. The government has not taken any measures to provide justice even after the completion of seven years of Makkah Masjid bomb blast. The demand of justice is that first of all government should withdraw all the cases registered against Muslim youths in connection of blasts in the year 2007 (these cases are still open).

Now, at the time when the A.P. State is bifurcated and elections also held successfully, we demand the government of Telangana with the following because claiming to do justice with the minorities does not end the matter, in fact the time has come to implement those claims:

The real terrorists who are responsible for the blasts should be punished severely, so that no other innocent is targeted and tortured.

Tainted police officers should be punished.

Measures should be taken for the rehabilitation of Muslim youths.

The victims of state and police torture, i.e. Muslim youth should be awarded with the government jobs.

The government should withdraw the advocates who are appointed to defend the tainted police officers in the courts and

Advocate Ravichander’s report should be presented in the Assembly and its recommendations should be implemented immediately.